Review: Venom

Y’all. I ain’t kidding when I say I was so hyped for this movie I was just over the moon when my mother suggested we go see it.

Like, why wouldn’t I?

First of all, Eminem added to the hype massively with his track ‘Venom’ which, in my opinion, was perfect for the movie. It was deep, it was dark, it sped up as much as it slowed down – which is a technique which was used amazingly in the film. He also teased the film’s animation with his music video:

Be aware, before even thinking of delving into this review that I may accidentally let something slip without realising it, so spoilers may find their way into this. Don’t say I didn’t warn you, and for the love of God, please don’t spam me with hate mail because of it.

Now, let’s start from the beginning. The introduction of the characters was well done, you got a clear sense of the atmosphere, what was going on, what time we were in, and what our villain’s agenda was. However, both my mother and I agreed that it was a slow start. If it was a longer movie, sure, maybe I wouldn’t have noticed it as much, but it really impacted the ending for me – but we’ll get to that in a second.

I find that villains who actually have a deep, psychological meaning to what their plot is going to be makes them ten times, if not a hundred times, better. This is what made me love Saw, and it’s what made me like Carlton Drake, owner of our devious enterprise the ‘Life Foundation’ and played by Riz Ahmed, too. However, at the same time, I feel like he could’ve been done a little bit better – even though us writers follow the ‘show, don’t tell’ rule, the indistinct connection for why our villain was as he was just made it almost cliché – although it was his agenda to be a ‘God’, I believe it could’ve been shown with a little more insanity.

I mean, I get it. The audience saw our main protagonist Eddie, played by Tom Hardy, already go through the freak out, confusion and fear, so why see it again? Well, we don’t have to. Let our antagonist thrive with the power, question it at first, but then let us see a little bit of insanity – let him smile at the thought of being in power, let him shake his head and chuckle at the disgrace of the world. I wanted this villain to lose the prophet image that he thought he had and crack, but all I got was a robot who was insistent on his task. The reality is, the guy, although attached to this alien creature, is still human like Venom is with Eddie. Humans have flaws, there’s only so much they can do to hide their insanity – I doubt an alien feeding off him as a vessel made it any easier.

But, I guess, you could always argue that he was so insane he saw it as a normality. I personally would’ve loved to see a breakdown, a little bit of a wild gaze – it’s almost as if he expected these organisms to be as they are.

What I kinda also found annoying was how quickly Eddie and Venom connected. It stuck me as I watched the film for the first time that:

a) Eddie had been connected to Venom knowingly for less than a day

b) As soon as Eddie said “mask”, Venom just obeyed.

I get that they’re connected, literally in body and mind, but I feel like there could’ve been more done there. Show Eddie asking questions, figuring out what he could do like Spider-Man, making a proper pact with Venom as well. It would’ve been nicer than just going from ‘OH MY GOD WHAT THE HELL’ to ‘We’re a great team’.

The next thing that could’ve been done better, which I was so ready for as well, was the actual main fight. Don’t get me wrong, I loved everything in it. Acting was spectacular, graphics were amazing, CGI was mind blowing and beautiful; cinematography in the sense of camera, however, was not so great.

At first I thought it was because I have bad eyesight – when it comes to screens and lights, my eyes blur very easily, but when my mother commented on it as well, that’s when I knew it wasn’t just me. The camera is just way too close to our characters during these fight scenes, and it comes off very messily, which just means we don’t get to admire the amount of effort put into the graphics and acting in general. I personally also thought that the actual colouring of our enemy organism, Riot, wasn’t distinct enough – perhaps it was done on purpose to show how easily Venom can become him, however, it only added to the confusion my eyes were trying to make sense of. Simply put – all the build up in the beginning, where things clearly took their time, consequentially led to a rushed middle and end, which would’ve been improved if the creators took their time.

Art, especially film, cannot be rushed.

Don’t get me wrong, I still loved every part of this movie and can’t wait for its successor, I just believe there are things which could have been done better.

Especially the tone of voice when it came to Riot and Venom. It was just typical cliche, deep voiced but resonating ‘alien’ voice, which I hated. I cringed so hard when I first heard it.

If I had to rate this movie, I’d give it maybe a 6 out of 10. Feel free to let me know your thoughts!